


Arrow

by Batdad (MizGoat)



Series: The Quartermaster [10]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Aromantic, F/M, Ficlet, M/M, More of a writing exercise than a narrative tbh, Multi, Polyamorous Character, self reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 09:20:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15531123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizGoat/pseuds/Batdad
Summary: A brief history of Steady’s love life, or lack of love life, or however it should be called, for the curious.





	Arrow

**Author's Note:**

> Ended up writing this for a few reasons. I was in a big Aro _mood_ and I wanted to write about Steady’s sex life outside of his two romantic interests. I’m majorly stuck on another fic I wanna finish. And I’m having a rough couple of days so I was cheering myself up with Steady being Steady. 
> 
> This is more of a quick history than a full narrative, but hopefully it’s still fun to read. 
> 
> Sten belongs to Divine Valley

Steady couldn’t say why he started to process his relationships differently after Heart died, but he did. Before then, it had never mattered much who he slept with. It was fun, and if there was a willing partner available then why not? But after Heart there was a social contract that came with sex. It implied, at the very least, a potential for lasting connection. 

Grenade had been the first after Heart, and he was, to be honest, a mistake. He was too aggressive, too controlling. The sex wasn’t even particularly good. But Steady had been angry with himself, and Grenade had a tendency to say what Steady had already been thinking. It was easier to deal with those thoughts in Grenade’s voice than his own, similar though they might be. 

His affair with Pivot had started well. He was sweet and sensitive and he responded to Steady’s advances with a mix of awe and pleasure that had been exceptionally flattering to Steady’s ego. But something had gone wrong. Things had gotten uneven, lopsided. Pivot was putting something into the relationship that Steady didn’t know how to return. And then Pivot had begun to treat Steady’s increasingly disastrous relationship with Grenade as something he needed to be rescued from. 

When Grenade ended up scattered across a battlefield by his namesake, Pivot seemed to think that Steady was his and his alone. Steady had tried to gently disabuse him of that notion, but it had ended up being a screaming match that whole of the 212th had to have heard. And the worst part was that Steady felt guilty about it. He had cared for Pivot and had never wanted to hurt him. He’d tried to apologize, but Pivot didn’t want an apology, he wanted Steady to promise monogamy, and he wouldn’t. 

Around that time a rumor began swirling around about a sergeant taking advantage of one of his new recruits, and Steady quit telling anyone about Heart. 

It had been during that mess that he had met Lockdown, and Lockdown had been a lifeline. It was the first time Steady had been absolutely sure that his partner wanted the same thing as he did from the relationship. He was jovial, a bit of a flirt, and he had told Steady exactly what he wanted when he had made his first move. No monogamy, no romance, just friendship and sex. It had been such a relief to not worry about managing expectations. And it was nice to have someone who had apparently already figured out many of the things Steady was still struggling to articulate, and who understood how Steady felt without him having to very carefully explain it.

He didn’t see as much of Lockdown these days, now that he had been promoted to an ARC. Still it never failed that if Lockdown asked, Steady found a way to be available.

“This is the shit that keeps me warm at night on the trash assignments,” Lockdown had told him once. Steady, who had been in the middle of giving him a blow job at the time, had had to stop because he was laughing so hard. 

“Don’t laugh, I’m serious. No matter how bad things get, I can reassure myself that if I make it back, you’ll be here.” Lockdown bent over and ruffled Steady’s hair.

“And what? You’ll get your victory blowjob?” Steady snorted. He’d just about managed to quit laughing, but he was biting his lip to help keep it in. His shoulders shook a little at his own joke. 

“Hells yes. But really, you understand me in a way most don’t or can’t. It’s a good feeling to come back to.”

They didn’t kiss. Lockdown didn’t like kissing much. But Steady rested his cheek on Lockdown’s thigh for a moment and soaked in the compliment.

Gili drifted in and out as their interest seemed to wax and wane. For months they would do little more than chat amicably in passing of that. Gili would retreat into themself, and the connection between them would wilt. Then without warning Gili would show up one night with a smile and a soft “please.” It always  felt to Steady a bit like rain in a dry season. Unexpected and brief, but always welcome. 

“I think they take advantage of you,” Tadhg had told Steady once. 

“If I wasn’t happy with the arrangement I’d call it off,” Steady responded. Tadhg meant well, but he often viewed Steady’s relationships from his own standards of what was desirable, and not Steady’s. 

Truth was he worried about Gili when they got too quiet, but the war kept everyone on just a little too busy and Steady wouldn’t know what they needed anyway. 

And of course there had been Yoss until Yoss had left him for Shepard. Yoss was the one nobody understood the appeal of but Steady and Shepard apparently. Yoss had become Tadhg’s chief piece of ammo if Steady ever complained about Brass. But Steady had just enough of a mean streak to enjoy Yoss’s sense of humor. And his loyalty was unbeatable. 

Women featured less prominently in these self appraisals of his relationships. It wasn’t that there were no women in the GAR, but they were fewer and further between. Women were largely a shore leave phenomenon and as such tended to fall more into that pre-Heart classification that excluded lasting connections. He knew it was unlikely he’d see any of them again. Still a few stood out. 

Aola, the Twi’lek woman who had been his first. They had gotten drunk together on Ryloth, and he’d jumped at the chance when she offered. She’d laughed at his eagerness and without knowing why it had reminded him of Heart. And for the first time the memory hadn’t been painful.

There was the nurse on Coruscant who he still saw in passing sometimes when the 212th was stationed there and made awkward small talk with. Meedra whom he had met at 79s and who had been kind enough to teach him what a strap-on was and then demonstrate its use. 

Separate from all of these was Sten. Steady was aware of a widening gap between how he felt about Sten and how he felt about any of his other partners. A favoritism, perhaps? It was worrying to think about, and Steady had far too many other worries so he simply pushed it to the back of his mind. Still, being with Sten was somehow both perfectly comfortable and wildly unbalancing. It was complicated, but Steady found he didn’t mind much. He’d figure it out sometime later. 


End file.
